In the space below, describe the stasis at the beginning of Split Second. In other words, “Where are we?” “When is it (time, day, and year)?” “Who are the people involved?” “What is the dramatic situation in which the characters find themselves as the play unfolds?” This play takes place in Manhattan and begins on July 4th of present day and ends on July 6th. Val Johnson, the main character, is a black New York cop who catches a suspect stealing an old car on the night of July 4th and proceeds to chase him until he catches up to him and handcuffs him. The suspect, William H. Willis, is a racist white man who won’t stop making extremely offensive remarks to Val, causing Val to open fire and shoot him in the chest. Val has a wife, Alea, who pleads him to lie so he will go free. He also has a dad named Rusty who believes in telling the truth and disagrees strongly with Val’s actions. Val also has two friends on the force that make appearances in the play; Charlie and Parker (Parker is his superior). Worried about going to jail for life, Val lies to cover his crime.
What is the intrusion that causes the stasis to be broken and the dramatic action to develop, often at an increasingly rapid pace, to the end of the play? Be careful when citing the intrusion, it may not be where you initially think it is. I believe the intrusion is when Val is talking to his superior, Parker, and this is when he begins to lie to cover up what he’s actually done. He knows if he tells the truth he will be sent to prison. This ultimately sets up the dramatic question of whether or not Val will eventually come clean or keep his secret. Also if he keeps the secret, how will he feel with this load of guilt hanging over him for the rest of his life?
Why do the events of the play take place at this particular time and place? In other words, what is the unique factor which is out of the ordinary that causes a turn of events to take place? This is the day that Val Johnson shoots William H. Willis for persistently making extremely racist and offensive remarks to Val. He then covers up his actions by manipulating the evidence from the scene to make it look like Willis came at Val with a knife, using self-defense as his falsified reasoning for killing Willis.
State the dramatic questions that must be answered by the end of the play? (Ordinarily, the dramatic question shares a close connection with the intrusion.) Ultimately, we want to know if Val ever comes clean and what his consequences are, regardless of whether he tells the truth or not. If he tells the truth we would want to know if he gets sent to prison and for how long, and also what would happen to his wife and father. If he doesn’t tell the truth, we want to know how the guilt will change him. We find out in the end that Val decides to continue with his lies, though the last scene illustrates that the life washes out of Val because the guilt has just overwhelmed him.
Use Val to answer the questions concerning character. Ball says, a character is revealed by what he/she does, that is, dramatic actions that are taken. Examine what Val wants (NOTE: In Split Second the wants of Val are in flux and he is being swayed by his father, his wife, his friend, and his colleague at work. His wants seem to change as the play progresses). The wants of a character often encounter obstacles that get in the way of achieving those wants. Ball says there are 4 kinds of obstacles that frustrate the wants of a character. They are: a. Me against myself, b. Me against another individual, c. Me against society (that is law, social norms, etc.) and, d. Me against fate, the universe, natural forces, God or the gods. In answering these questions be sure to point to the particular obstacles that the character encounters. At the beginning of the play, Val wants to just catch this suspect (William H. Willis) and send him away for stealing a car. However, as the confrontation between the two unfolds, Val has some serious issues with his suspect and the two have a large argument where Willis says some very nasty things, which seem to overwhelm Val and cause him to shoot and kill Willis. In this scene he faces an obstacle with Willis and himself because he has to decide how he is going to handle what he’s just done. Throughout the play, we see how Val struggles with himself over what he’s done. He tries to tell himself that the victim was a scumbag and probably deserved to be killed, yet he knows deep down that what he did was clearly against the law. He faces obstacles with his dad and wife because his wife wants him to lie because she thinks she can’t live without him and his dad believes he needs to tell the truth. His dad, an ex-cop, believes in the law and the oath Val took and knows he needs to come clean. By the end of the play, Val decides he wants to continue with his lie. However, as we see at the end, as soon as he lies to the hearing board, all life washes out of him and the guilt consumes him. He also seems to have a large obstacle against white people, in general, because he claims they still don’t treat blacks as equals. There is no clear sign of any obstacles against gods or higher powers in this play.
The most important information in most plays takes place during theatrical moments. Identify the most theatrical moments in Split Second. Obviously, a theatrical moment is when Val opens fire on William H. Willis. The scene abruptly ends and it cuts the climax of Willis’ remarks short. I also believe the scenes where Val comes clean to his wife and especially his father are pretty theatrical because the scenes get more heated as the two figure out what Val has done. While Alea just wants Val to continue to lie, Rusty is furious and demands he tell the truth.
Provide at least three examples of images in Split Second. How does the title of the play help us understand the images in the play? (Remember Ball says that, “An image is the use of something we know that tells us something we don’t know.” He goes on to say that images invoke and expand, rather than define and limit.”) I think one image is the police uniform. It shows Val’s dedication to serve, yet he loses this loyalty the second he shoots Willis. He seems to struggle between wanting to serve his nation and believing his nation is against him because of white supremacy. Another image could be his gun, used to shoot Willis. This explains the title so well because a gun is so fast it illustrates how Val’s life (and Willis’ life) changed in a split second. All it took was one pull on the trigger and Willis was dead, curtesy of Val. Lastly, I think an image could be Willis’ knife. Val was lucky Willis even had a weapon because otherwise he couldn’t make his case of self-defense. He was smart enough to rub off his fingerprints and manipulate the scene so it looked like Willis came at him and he had no other choice but to shoot.
Ordinarily, there are many themes in most plays. List the themes in Split Second. Some themes illustrated in this play are white supremacy, justice and the law, discrimination, and the struggle of doing the easy thing versus doing the right thing.
Most American plays have something to do with family and/or family relationships. What does family have to do with the dramatic action in Split Second? We clearly see a struggle between Val and his father. He was almost forced to be a cop because he was surrounded by cop things all the time when he was young. He didn’t know anything else and he know what his father expected of him. His father believes in the law and believes in doing what is right. When Rusty finds out what Val is done, I think a huge wave of disappointment overwhelms him because he believes he failed as a father and didn’t teach his son to just walk away and ignore people like Willis. We see towards the end that Rusty actually moved to the city to be close to Val, yet this incident separates them more than ever. The reader can sense that after the end of the play, Val and his father will have a forever broken relationship. We also see Val’s relationship with his wife, who believes she can’t survive without Val. Even though Rusty warns her that Val will never be the same person after this incident, she is so adamant about keeping him in her life. She relies on him and feels she needs him so bad. This difference in opinion from two of Val’s closest family members tears him between telling the truth and keeping it a secret. He is stuck between “pleasing” his father and pleasing his wife.
This play takes place in Manhattan and begins on July 4th of present day and ends on July 6th. Val Johnson, the main character, is a black New York cop who catches a suspect stealing an old car on the night of July 4th and proceeds to chase him until he catches up to him and handcuffs him. The suspect, William H. Willis, is a racist white man who won’t stop making extremely offensive remarks to Val, causing Val to open fire and shoot him in the chest. Val has a wife, Alea, who pleads him to lie so he will go free. He also has a dad named Rusty who believes in telling the truth and disagrees strongly with Val’s actions. Val also has two friends on the force that make appearances in the play; Charlie and Parker (Parker is his superior). Worried about going to jail for life, Val lies to cover his crime.
What is the intrusion that causes the stasis to be broken and the dramatic action to develop, often at an increasingly rapid pace, to the end of the play? Be careful when citing the intrusion, it may not be where you initially think it is.
I believe the intrusion is when Val is talking to his superior, Parker, and this is when he begins to lie to cover up what he’s actually done. He knows if he tells the truth he will be sent to prison. This ultimately sets up the dramatic question of whether or not Val will eventually come clean or keep his secret. Also if he keeps the secret, how will he feel with this load of guilt hanging over him for the rest of his life?
Why do the events of the play take place at this particular time and place? In other words, what is the unique factor which is out of the ordinary that causes a turn of events to take place?
This is the day that Val Johnson shoots William H. Willis for persistently making extremely racist and offensive remarks to Val. He then covers up his actions by manipulating the evidence from the scene to make it look like Willis came at Val with a knife, using self-defense as his falsified reasoning for killing Willis.
State the dramatic questions that must be answered by the end of the play? (Ordinarily, the dramatic question shares a close connection with the intrusion.)
Ultimately, we want to know if Val ever comes clean and what his consequences are, regardless of whether he tells the truth or not. If he tells the truth we would want to know if he gets sent to prison and for how long, and also what would happen to his wife and father. If he doesn’t tell the truth, we want to know how the guilt will change him. We find out in the end that Val decides to continue with his lies, though the last scene illustrates that the life washes out of Val because the guilt has just overwhelmed him.
Use Val to answer the questions concerning character. Ball says, a character is revealed by what he/she does, that is, dramatic actions that are taken. Examine what Val wants (NOTE: In Split Second the wants of Val are in flux and he is being swayed by his father, his wife, his friend, and his colleague at work. His wants seem to change as the play progresses). The wants of a character often encounter obstacles that get in the way of achieving those wants. Ball says there are 4 kinds of obstacles that frustrate the wants of a character. They are: a. Me against myself, b. Me against another individual, c. Me against society (that is law, social norms, etc.) and, d. Me against fate, the universe, natural forces, God or the gods. In answering these questions be sure to point to the particular obstacles that the character encounters.
At the beginning of the play, Val wants to just catch this suspect (William H. Willis) and send him away for stealing a car. However, as the confrontation between the two unfolds, Val has some serious issues with his suspect and the two have a large argument where Willis says some very nasty things, which seem to overwhelm Val and cause him to shoot and kill Willis. In this scene he faces an obstacle with Willis and himself because he has to decide how he is going to handle what he’s just done. Throughout the play, we see how Val struggles with himself over what he’s done. He tries to tell himself that the victim was a scumbag and probably deserved to be killed, yet he knows deep down that what he did was clearly against the law. He faces obstacles with his dad and wife because his wife wants him to lie because she thinks she can’t live without him and his dad believes he needs to tell the truth. His dad, an ex-cop, believes in the law and the oath Val took and knows he needs to come clean. By the end of the play, Val decides he wants to continue with his lie. However, as we see at the end, as soon as he lies to the hearing board, all life washes out of him and the guilt consumes him. He also seems to have a large obstacle against white people, in general, because he claims they still don’t treat blacks as equals. There is no clear sign of any obstacles against gods or higher powers in this play.
The most important information in most plays takes place during theatrical moments. Identify the most theatrical moments in Split Second.
Obviously, a theatrical moment is when Val opens fire on William H. Willis. The scene abruptly ends and it cuts the climax of Willis’ remarks short. I also believe the scenes where Val comes clean to his wife and especially his father are pretty theatrical because the scenes get more heated as the two figure out what Val has done. While Alea just wants Val to continue to lie, Rusty is furious and demands he tell the truth.
Provide at least three examples of images in Split Second. How does the title of the play help us understand the images in the play? (Remember Ball says that, “An image is the use of something we know that tells us something we don’t know.” He goes on to say that images invoke and expand, rather than define and limit.”)
I think one image is the police uniform. It shows Val’s dedication to serve, yet he loses this loyalty the second he shoots Willis. He seems to struggle between wanting to serve his nation and believing his nation is against him because of white supremacy. Another image could be his gun, used to shoot Willis. This explains the title so well because a gun is so fast it illustrates how Val’s life (and Willis’ life) changed in a split second. All it took was one pull on the trigger and Willis was dead, curtesy of Val. Lastly, I think an image could be Willis’ knife. Val was lucky Willis even had a weapon because otherwise he couldn’t make his case of self-defense. He was smart enough to rub off his fingerprints and manipulate the scene so it looked like Willis came at him and he had no other choice but to shoot.
Ordinarily, there are many themes in most plays. List the themes in Split Second.
Some themes illustrated in this play are white supremacy, justice and the law, discrimination, and the struggle of doing the easy thing versus doing the right thing.
Most American plays have something to do with family and/or family relationships. What does family have to do with the dramatic action in Split Second?
We clearly see a struggle between Val and his father. He was almost forced to be a cop because he was surrounded by cop things all the time when he was young. He didn’t know anything else and he know what his father expected of him. His father believes in the law and believes in doing what is right. When Rusty finds out what Val is done, I think a huge wave of disappointment overwhelms him because he believes he failed as a father and didn’t teach his son to just walk away and ignore people like Willis. We see towards the end that Rusty actually moved to the city to be close to Val, yet this incident separates them more than ever. The reader can sense that after the end of the play, Val and his father will have a forever broken relationship. We also see Val’s relationship with his wife, who believes she can’t survive without Val. Even though Rusty warns her that Val will never be the same person after this incident, she is so adamant about keeping him in her life. She relies on him and feels she needs him so bad. This difference in opinion from two of Val’s closest family members tears him between telling the truth and keeping it a secret. He is stuck between “pleasing” his father and pleasing his wife.